Reggio Emilia: Ivanchuk’с Third Лосс in a Row; Nakamura’с Solid Lead

The 7th round of Reggio super-tournament that takes place in Italy was marked by 2 short draws in the following encounters: Morozevich — Giri (due to repetition) and Caruana — Nakamura. American General Motors repeated Pate Svidler'с opening variation against Karjakin from the Tal Memorial and White again managed to equalize.

Round 7 also saw a terrible blunder from Vassily Ivanchuk, who was doing absolutely fine against Vitiugov until the blunder. Ivanchuk resigned immediately after dropping his knight.

30…Nxc4?? 31.Nxc4! 1-0
31.Qxc4 is bad because of 31…Qb8. It turns out that White just drops their knight as long as White pawn wasn't available to be grabbed — a fatal miscalculation.

This is a third лосс in a row for Ivanchuk, who played third in a row game with White. That'с sort of a unique event in famous Ukrainian General Motors'с career. In the first game with White he missed victory against Nakamura (it may be the key moment of the whole tournament), then he objectively lost against Dutch jr Giri.

In many of the two-circled competitions it'с usual to change the standard order of the rounds in order the плеер not to be forced to play three rounds with one color, as it happened to Ivanchuk.